Theater on the green: Staging eco-minded productions in SD

Seema Sueko (shown at Miramar Recycling Center) and her theater company Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company have been at the forefront of developing strategies to reduce waste and other environmental impacts from the construction and disposal of used theater scenery.
— K.C. Alfred / UNION-TRIBUNE

Seema Sueko (shown at Miramar Recycling Center) and her theater company Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company have been at the forefront of developing strategies to reduce waste and other environmental impacts from the construction and disposal of used theater scenery.
— K.C. Alfred / UNION-TRIBUNE

Cartier finds his materials discarded in alleyways or advertised as freebies on Craigslist. He has managed to round up enough metal to construct an 8-foot-tall UFO for Technomania’s next production, a spoofy alien romp that opens March 20.

Cartier also notes that Technomania is located right next to a stop on the trolley’s Orange Line.

Transportation is likewise an aspect of Mo’olelo’s green mission; the company offers $5 discount coupons via e-mail to theatergoers who get to the show by carpooling, driving a hybrid, bicycling or using public transportation.

That’s not such an issue on Broadway, where most theaters are located within a few blocks of a subway stop. But the theaters there are finding other ways to chip away at their environmental impact.

Sampliner says that within the space of a single year, nearly all the bulbs on Broadway marquees were switched from incandescent to LED lights or other more energy-efficient types.

On the question, though, of whether better choices for the environment might lead to artistic compromises, Sampliner says it’s too early to say. With the long lead times of the typical Broadway show, there hasn’t been much opportunity for productions to incorporate green thinking from the earliest conceptual stages.

“At this point, we realize a lot of our designers don’t know what the greener choices are,” Sampliner says. One good sign, she says, is that she now gets frequent calls from other theaters asking what steps they should take.

Sueko likewise doesn’t expect instant results, especially when theaters lately have had to focus so much energy on simple survival. The rich tradition of theater, the way so much of it is still handmade, also means old ways can be slow to evolve.

“As progressive as we think of theater as being, it’s hard to change the way things have always been done,” Sueko says. “We’re very green at being green.”